Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence? A year to the day before his assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. was in New York City, at the Riverside Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side, talking about Vietnam. 3. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. In April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam War and US militarism. To King, however, the Vietnam War was only the most pressing symptom of American colonialism worldwide. America will be! We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. According to the PBS documentary MLK: A Call to Conscience (2010), the speech was denounced by 168 newspapers across the country. These are revolutionary times. Or will there be another message of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemys point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. King had stepped up his anti-war proclamations on February 25, 1967, when he appeared at a convention in Beverly Hills, California. 55 0 obj Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence argues his stance against the government and their decisions on war. King, " The Casualties of the War in Vietnam, " 25 February 1967, CLPAC. As Arnold Toynbee says: Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr., an enormously influential civil rights activist, conveys his indignant and hopeful thoughts regarding the Vietnam War, in his speech "Beyond Vietnam," by utilizing biblical allusion, anaphora, and use of diction. One of Martin Luther King Jr.'s lesser known yet equally impactful speeches, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," condemns the violence and atrocities committed by the U.S against the Vietnamese in their foolish bid to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. endstream Here's the essay I wrote in the video: In the speech "Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence," Dr. Rev. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. This is a case of getting out of a certain frame of mind, of a way of thinking about ourselves and about the world.. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. These words, spoken exactly one year to the day before his assassination . Photo: Ad Meskens. A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nations homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. It decided to send money, supplies, and military advisers to help the South Vietnamese g. MLK: Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change 251K views 7 years ago William Pepper - The Execution of Martin Luther King. Dr. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. The essence of the speech focused on the war in Vietnam. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Martin Luther King, Jr. makes a compelling case for the proposition that the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War is unjust using ethos (facts and commonly accepted values or ethics), pathos (appeals to emotion through powerful descriptive language), and . He spoke at Riverside Church in New York City, a venue that had a history of hosting progressive speakers and thinkers. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. On April 4, 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a speech named, "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence" addressing the Vietnam War. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. dVb+==*7O5yM^sN/3 ? Part of our ongoing Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. or 404 526-8968. I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. Martin Luther King April 4, 1967 Riverside Church, New York City Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government. They illustrate the depth of Dr. King's comprehension that the Civil Rights Movement was a struggle of more than one race in one nation at one point in time. All Rights Reserved. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. There's no pattern, and that's what's so frustrating.". P. 206-215. Hear the entire recording of Martin Luther King, Jr.s Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence speech, including introductory applause and a greeting King makes to his fellow clergy speakers. Dr. Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech and analyze his opposition to the war and his commitment to fighting for justice for the poor and marginalized. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. King's famous speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A time to break the silence," deserves study by antiwar activists and others seeking a better understanding of the battle for economic justice, racial equality and freedom at home and abroad. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. In early 1967 King stepped up his anti-war proclamations, giving similar speeches in Los Angeles and Chicago. He disagreed with America going to war in Vietnam in 1955 and to voice his thoughts he wrote and delivered his speech "Beyond Vietnam- A Time to Break Silence." which took place at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967 to let his audience know that the Vietnam War is unjust. baseball font with tail generator Viet Thanh Nguyen on Dr. King's 1967 speech 'Beyond Vietnam' When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. The first reason "obvious" and "facile," according to King was the effect of the Vietnam War on the War on Poverty in the United States. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. From The Vietnam War, PBS. "I think there . We must move past indecision to action. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. 54 0 obj Now let us begin. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his first major public address on the War in Vietnam at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City. Iv?'WK4(WUx:mEc>Z:ShY| x_5i_TVov8mTS&YG=^mDHrUrrEWjTTSVSHM]A"mYq-,Hkjf^\@&` |\.xz][WjG9'*&WOyeV_5i#>Z:ShY| x_5igZfS_;nC5. Beyond Vietnam Ethos Pathos Logos. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.. Despite public criticism, King continued to attack the Vietnam War on both moral and economic grounds. Table of Content. What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? We must stop now. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. Life expectancy rose from 70.5 to 75.5 years between 1990 and 2020. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. She was once a tour guide in real life, too. And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. I heard him speak so many times. Equally unclear is why Vietnam decided to begin accepting deportees who arrived in the United States prior to 1995. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. Vietnam's universal health coverage index is at 73higher than regional and global averageswith 87 percent of the population covered. His indictment of the U.S. government and the war became known as The Riverside Church Speech and it was criticized by media from The New York Times to the Washington Post, and by groups such as the NAACP, which objected to the Civil Rights Movement weighing in on the war and joining anti-war protests. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. Both sides alleged, more or less accurately, that the other side was continuously violating the terms . We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote). King, Martin Luther Jr. "Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam." In Editors of Ramparts with Banning Garrett and Katherine Barkley (Eds.) Credibility gap is a term that came into wide use with journalism, political and public discourse in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? I still think this is probably the best., It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor both black and white through the poverty program. King,Beyond Vietnam,4 April 1967, NNRC. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government. As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated: Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word (unquote). On March 29, 1973, the last U.S. military unit left Vietnam. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence " Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence ", also referred as the Riverside Church speech, [1] is an anti-Vietnam War and pro- social justice speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated. MLK: Beyond Vietnam to Ukraine. Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is a civil rights legend. Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence was delivered by Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of concerned clergy and laity at Riverside Church in New York City, New York. Mandy Jackson A Time to Break Silence On April 4,1967, in Riverside Church, New York City Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers a speech called Beyond Vietnam He initiates, "War is not the answer. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. In April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an eloquent and stirring denunciation of the Vietnam war and US militarism. He stated . Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Jim Meyer 2020, Beyond Vietnam:A Time to Break Silence Abstract "The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. King, " Beyond Vietnam, " 4 April 1967, NNRC. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. . Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. Relevance to U.S. Wars and Militarism Today By Mary Hladky, American Friends Service Committee, KC Program Committee Clerk and United for Peace and Justice, Coordinating Committee Member 50 years ago, on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church, in NYC, Martin Luther King delivered his powerful and most . stream They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. In its April 7 editorial "Dr. King's Error," The New York Times lambasted King for fusing two problems that are "distinct and separate.". It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. In that address, he articulated his reasons for his opposition to the Southeast Asian conflict. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They ask if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. Not only were they fighting for their own rights in 1976, but they were sending away the son, husbands, brothers of other Americans thousands of miles away to the country of Vietnam to fight an unjust war for the rights of the people in Southeast Asia. There is at the outset a very obvious and MLK's Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public scepticism about the Lyndon B. Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. << /Filter /FlateDecode /S 163 /Length 230 >> Martin Luther King - Beyond Vietnam - 1967 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Volume 90% 00:00 51:49 Martin Luther King - Beyond Vietnam - 1967 Topics Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam, war, social justice, peace * Reverend Martin Luther King * Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence * April 4, 1967 * Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence was actually a collaborative work largely written by a close associate and friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. - Vincent Harding. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: To save the soul of America. We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. In the speech at Riverside Church, King talked about how the US had supported France in trying to re-colonize . We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops. It was used in journalism as a euphemism for recognized lies told to the public by . However, all was not well on the ground: the country lost a Navy intelligence ship (USS Pueblo) and two While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never . The fall of South Vietnam. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor., I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. Kings anti-war sentiments emerged publicly for the first time in March 1965, when King declared thatmillions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Viet Nam and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma(King, 9 March 1965).
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